Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/149

Rh of principles which it was necessary to explain and defend, we have been compelled to study constitutions and laws, and in thus seeking to redress the wrongs and vindicate the rights of the many, we have secured a higher development for ourselves. Nor is this all. The full fruition of these years of seed-sowing shall yet be realized, though it may not be by those who have led in the reform, for many of our number have already fallen asleep. Another decade and not one of us may be here, but we have smoothed the rough paths for those who come after us. The lives of multitudes will be gladdened by the sacrifices we have made, and the truths we have uttered can never die.

Standing near the gateway of the unknown land and looking back through the vista of the past, memory recalls many duties in life's varied relations we would had been better done. The past to all of us is filled with regrets. We can recall, perchance, social ambitions disappointed, fond hopes wrecked, ideals in wealth, power, position, unattained—much that would be considered success in life unrealized. But I think we should all agree that the time, the thought, the energy we have devoted to the freedom of our countrywomen, that the past, in so far as our lives have represented this great movement, brings us only unalloyed satisfaction. The rights already obtained, the full promise of the rising generation of women more than repay us for the hopes so long deferred, the rights yet denied, the humiliation of spirit we still suffer.

And for those of you who have been mere spectators of the long, hard battle we have fought, and are still fighting, I have a word. Whatever your attitude has been, whether as cold, indifferent observers—whether you have hurled at us the shafts of ridicule or of denunciation, we ask you now to lay aside your old educational prejudices and give this question your earnest consideration, substituting reason for ridicule, sympathy for sneers. I urge the young women especially to prepare themselves to take up the work so soon to fall from our hands. You have had opportunities for education such as we had not. You hold to-day the vantage-ground we have won by argument. Show now your gratitude to us by making the uttermost of yourselves, and by your earnest, exalted lives secure to those who come after you a higher outlook, a broader culture, a larger freedom than have yet been vouchsafed to woman in our own happy land.

Congratulatory letters and telegrams were received from all portions of the United States and from the old world. Space